Got A Pretty Penny? The China Daily Front Page Can Be Yours

China Daily LV cover
No one would confuse China Daily for a real newspaper — the kind that doesn’t write “A Friend’s Departure” on its front page when North Korea’s leader dies — but the company undoubtedly has real journalists on staff, veteran reporters who quietly toil within China’s noxious media environment to produce respectable work, and it’s those... Read more »

South China Morning Post’s Slide Toward Irrelevance? [UPDATE]

Paul Mooney and Wang Xiangmei
UPDATE: Wang Xiangwei has responded in an interview with AFP. See below. Veteran reporter (not black comedian) Paul Mooney, whose contract with South China Morning Post was not renewed last month, delivered quite the parting shot at his former employer in the Hong Kong e-magazine iSun Affairs, and he names names. Mooney, a multiple-award-winning journalist, aimed his... Read more »

Chinese State Media Gushes Over Piece Of Adhesive Hu Jintao Removes From His Shoe

Hu Jintao and the national flag
Here is the perfect example of a Chinese state mouthpiece spinning cock out of bull. Attention: this piece, “President Hu picks up China’s dignity,” published on People’s Daily at 1:05 pm today. Scene: G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico; as leaders walk off after their photo op, Chinese president Hu Jintao bends over to pick... Read more »

Chinese News Team Reports On Rare Lingzhi Mushroom, Which Is Actually A Rubber Vagina

Sex mushroom
Shanghaiist has the story, as does the Beijinger. But damn it all if we’re letting a sex mushroom get through the day without ribbing it here. On June 17, Xi’an Up Close《西安零距离》aired a story about a “mushroom” that was found in Liucunbu village in Shaanxi province. The reporter, Ye Yunfeng, says at one point: “We can see here... Read more »

Today In Shitty Journalism: Huff Post, Business Insider And Bloomberg TV Follow The Blind

Foxconn "riot"
Eric Fish of Sinostand basically said all I wanted to in his post earlier today, “Foxconn: A Very Quiet Riot“: Over the past day or so several foreign media outlets including Huffington Post, Business Insider and Bloomberg TV have been reporting that dozens of workers at a Foxconn factory in Chengdu were arrested after clashing with security at a dormitory.... Read more »

China’s Media Conundrum: Truth Or Bullshit?

Black man in China
By RFH The 100 Days campaign has been providing many freelancers the opportunity to convince editors back home that there’s some kind of slash ’n’ burn bender going on. A lot of these articles have been boilerplate mush, oozing from the chin of the great China news aggregator, but one particular piece about alleged racism at a newspaper, posted on... Read more »

Naive Or Dumb? MSNBC Tries To Make A Thing Out Of China’s English-Teacher-Hiring Practices

English teacher
MSNBC has a China blog called “Behind the Wall,” and as the name might suggest, it targets an American audience that may not be as familiar with China as those of us here on the ground (“behind the wall” sounds a lot like “other side of the world,” i.e. a throwaway cliche one scribbles on... Read more »

Al-Jazeera Forced To Close Its Beijing Bureau [UPDATE]

Melissa Chan Twitter
Al-Jazeera’s China correspondent, Melissa Chan, was denied a visa extension and scheduled to leave the country last night, marking the end of the Qatar-based company’s Beijing bureau. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, of which Chan was a board member, was quick to issue a statement: Chinese officials had expressed anger at a documentary the channel... Read more »

Forget About Kony 2012 In China. The Carl Weathers Meme Has Officially Arrived

Carl Weathers as Joseph Kony
I work at a small newspaper that employs a staff of Chinese writers and editors who write and edit in English. They’re an earnest, hard-working bunch, and I admire them immensely for consistently putting together a publication in their second language. But sometimes, mistakes happen — which is why they employ myself and D, the... Read more »

A Story About Journalism (Or, Why Details Matter): The Implications Of One Small Associated Press Editing Error

Pictured: Associated Press reporter Greg Risling
Let’s get the facts straight to start. The USC students who were shot and killed last Wednesday were not in a “new 3-series BMW,” as was originally reported. The AP’s Greg Risling, who has been assigned this beat, can be commended for reporting in a follow-up story: Some Chinese students at USC opted not to attend... Read more »